Supervisor: prof. ak. mal. Vladimír Kokolia

The aim of the project is to treat the wall as an experimental structure on which it is possible to explore various approaches to work, describe the boundaries distinguishing artistic ambitions from craftsmanship, and seek arguments that stand between ordinary and exceptional work. The starting point is a fable about a building, one side of which is a wall and the other a bricklayer. However, the wall being worked on, which is ‘outside’, and the bricklayer who is building it and is ‘inside’ are not two different things for the building; the quality of the workmanship is determined by the process, i.e. the degree of commitment with which the wall was built. The leitmotif of the project is the question: can quality – art – be freed from the dictates of mastery? The answer will be preceded by a revision of the concept of work, but at the same time, the question provokes reflection on what makes sweeping creative, for example, and what can be appropriately applied outside of work assignments. While the social science approach focuses more on working conditions and adequate earnings, this project asks what work subordinated to profit loses and what horizons open up when we approach it in a way that better builds the world (and ourselves).

I talked to a plasterer I know about work and admitted to him that I would like to get into this field. He advised me that it would be best for me to start by mixing mortar on a facade. I politely objected that it would be a bit of a waste for me to be mixing mortar, which, of course, put an end to the conversation.

The project is based on manual work, which usually results in walls of a craft and exhibition nature, as well as on work reflection in the form of a written construction diary. However, reflection in particular is now at such a stage that continuing alone would deepen the path of a lonely novelist, but the challenge of the project is to find out whether and how the project is feasible for others. For this reason, a construction brigade was established, which, in addition to joint construction, is engaged in a collective portrait of the building composed of various forms of recording (the maxim of the construction diary remains the capture of the enthusiasm that building with the care of an artist requires).

MgA. Patrik Pelikán,

Studio:

Dissertation: Beyond the Zenith of Mastery

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